Afternoon Naps

I haven't gotten the toddlers on a napping schedule since we moved back to the US. In Chile, Lily and Abi would take naps during the drives to and from school. Here we don't have those daily drives, so here's a pic of how the afternoon nap happens (if it happens at all.)


If they need a nap, I turn on a movie. Hope they fall asleep. That usually doesn't work, so I just let them collapse when they can't go on, with hopes that that occurs before 5, cause when it happens at 5:00 or later, my attempts and transferring them into their beds or keeping the other kids quiet until bedtime usually fail and the late napping child is awake and not tired at bedtime.


Since tomorrow is the last day of school, I didn't bother trying to get the school nap schedule going since school was soon to leave the equation. Trying to think of the best summer schedule and plan of attack for us. Anyone have chore systems that work well? I'm reading "Three Steps to a Strong Family" right now, which I've thumbed through before, it has a good idea of a peg board thing as part of step 2: Paying your Dues, A Family Economy" that I think I'll try to modify (again) for our crew and give a try (again). I'm always trying to figure out a system and set policy. Isn't there a Parent handbook out there or a "How to run a family for dummies"? I find bits and pieces here and there, but if it could all be put in one book for me that would be stupendous. Alas, since each family is so different and has such different needs, a one size fits all approach probably isn't out there. (sigh) Back to my thinking chair.

Wave At The Bus

Just saw this on the online Deseret News, check out this blog:

http://www.waveatthebus.blogspot.com/

I think that is hilarious! How much did it cost him to get all those costumes? Or did he borrow some? An idea to save in my mental file - could be useful someday! I think that is really funny. I looked back through day 86, will save the rest for tomorrow. I think my favorite so far is Day 111. I like the funny lines and movie quotes on the sides. :)

When Corey was at school at BYU, I bought a way official Darth Vadar "Supreme Edition" Costume, paid too much for it, not an impulse buy, but still didn't run it by Corey, still have it (hard to sell things or give things away when you didn't get a bargain on them...). Anyway, Joe was in kindergarten, and one day Corey picked him up at the bus stop as Darth Vadar, waiting with his lightsaber, for Jedi Joe. I brought Joe's lightsaber for him, traded it for his little back pack, and the duel began with all the other kids in awe and mothers watching too. It was pretty funny.

I Love Date Night

And I love spending time with this wonderful man - so happy he's mine!

Adios Craigslist

I posted five different things for sale on Craiglist yesterday, and got five emails in reply, each from a different person but suspiciously un-different as well. I think Craigslist has been overrun with Nigerian scammers and I'm thinking I'm just not going to bother with it anymore, better to just be charitable and give them to the DI. But these responses did made me laugh. I was suspicious because of #1) how unusual the names are for such a usual place as Utah, and #2) the way they talked with their "Hiya"s "Heya"s and "Howdy"s :

Miriam Sabir, I am interested in this bed. please call me 801-953-8015. Thanks

Dorin Klingshirn, Hello be sure to call me 440-756-6118. Actually Say thanks.

Gica Urbanek - Heya be certain to call me 965-867-8800. Correct Thanks a lot.

Kamler Urbanek - Howdy you can call me 338-743-8705. Sincere Thanks.

Willmschen Rougeot - Hiya you should call me 959-042-4506. Sensible With thanks.

That first one might be legit, I did email her a reply but haven't heard back. For some reason I don't want to call any of these numbers, even just for curiosity's sake. I should Google and see what's the latest scam strategy is. Any of you have similar experiences, or do you not use Craigslist. I was introduced to the "Free" section of KSL today, I heard items go really fast, so maybe if I don't feel like taking a trip to the DI tomorrow, maybe I'll post them there and see what happens. The KSL seems to be better here in Utah than Craigslist. I'll use Craigslist again if we ever go back to DC. But for now, farewell Craigslist! I won't be posting anymore, but will still probably browse around your for sale section now and then.

10 Randoms

1) Starting to work on Lily's ABC Book. Took the picture above on Sunday, I'm pretty sure it will make the final cut: W is for Witch I'm a cute little witch! (Love that mischievous grin - looks like she's cackling!)

2) My fingers and forearms are sore - on Monday my finger muscles were burnin' from holding down the spray button on 16 cans of spray paint as I primed a red bunk bed and then painted it white. That's for the girls room. It looks pretty good!

3) This morning I went on a walk and saw a hawk catch and then fly off with a quail bird. I felt bad for the quail. What are ya gonna do? A birds gotta eat I guess, but it made me think he was a cannibal, and also quoted Bug's Life to myself "It's a bug eat bug world out there, princess."

4) I need to get a trim, looking a little ragged and feeling a little too thick and hot. Going to schedule it soon. I go to Micky at Lunatic Fringe on Parley's Way. Highly recommend her, she is awesome.

5) My house smells like Indian curry right now. I made it for dinner last night, it was yummy and the kids ate it up very well, I enjoyed the leftovers for lunch. Mmmm! My first time cooking from a recipe since we've been back! Oh yeah, I'm stepping up to the dinner plate! Getting food on the table for dinner regularly was step 1. Step 2: using a recipe, going to try and make it a habit.

6) Besides the 5 squirrels in the backyard, we also have a red fox for a neighbor. I love it! We are living in the city but not of the city.

7) Corey's flying back to Chile for a week next week. He's gonna be gone for his birthday. So sad.

8) I have a recurring dream of my teeth falling out. Anyone else out there have that? Corey read in a book what it could mean. I think it might be right on. There are other interpretations on google. I'll have to find the book at write down what it said, then talk about that later as it's given me food for thought about myself.

9) Selling some stuff on Craigslist. I miss how big Craigslist is in DC - I could find anything and everything on there, and great stuff too. It's a little slower here. I have better luck at Deseret Industries, which is fine cause I love to go there too - get's the creative juices flowing.

10) Taking a poll: for our bookshelves in our side room with fireplace, which kind of bookshelves should we get? 1: Billy or 2: Expedit? We're going for black this time, yeah, really shaking things up!

Our Beautiful Home

We are currently living in the most wonderful home that is perfect for us, in the most beautiful location in Utah. Seriously, it's just perfect. Not a thing I can think of that I'd change in the home, but if I could I'd give it's current homemaker a gift of knowing interior design, I really need style help. We're starting with a clear canvas, and I'll go slow, and maybe if I watch a little HGTV, I can make it as lovely as it's surroundings (or Jersh? You or Jared available to come give a consultation?)

So, here is our lovely springtime view of the mountains from the front porch and kid's windows:


It's been a crazy spring, although we haven't experienced most of it. There is still a ton of snow on top of the mountains even though it's almost June! It's very pretty though.

Here is our front yard where Wesley and Abi like to play "Indiana Jones and Cinderella"

fun rocks for climbing and jumping off of - not too high, perfect for creative little minds. That white fence on the right borders on a tree farm.


Here are my boys home from Cub Scouts, you can see the unfinished dead end of the street and the trees that are our lovely neighbors - with it being a dead end there is absolutely no traffic. Nice to not worry about the kids going outside and not hearing it - definitely a major difference from what we experienced in our city apartment in Santiago. It's like you can relax here or something! I love to hear the wind blowing in the trees! And we have so much shade, and it's so pretty during the day, and at night time it's so dark and quiet and still, it seems like we're up in the mountains. We even have a family of squirrels that live in the back yard - we've seen 5 of them, a really big one and 4 average sized ones, maybe a mom and her kids? We've tried to feed them, but they run and hide. I might need to buy binoculars so we can watch them more closely from the kitchen.

My friend Monica was living here before us, and we'd exercise together in the mornings. After our workout and visit, I'd walk home and look up at the mountains and the trees and just sigh and fall in love, this is a little corner of heaven, and now it's my family's little corner of heaven! I feel so lucky and blessed and hope I always am full of gratitude to God for giving us this perfect home and area, I just love it! You know it wouldn't have worked out timing wise if we hadn't done the Chile thing, so I'm really grateful that Corey had that opportunity and that I was willing to go along ;) it was a great experience and I feel this home is my reward for being a supportive wife and doing it with him. It was totally worth it, a win-win opportunity. So happy to be back in Utah and in this lovely home! Come by for a visit anytime! Hopefully we'll have a couch for ya to sit on. ;)

What Was I Thinking?

Well, I'm kicking myself and scolding the Tiffanie of September 2010 for her lousy packing job. Cause guess what, I FOUND MY BLENDER!!! I'm glad that I had a goal today to go through the girl's clothes that were all over the bed in the spare room, cause I did it, and when I was done with that I thought I'd really finish up with the unpacking and sort through the last bin of boy clothes. At least I thought it was boy clothes. As I started to go through it, I found some of Corey's clothes. "Why are Corey's clothes in this bin of boy clothes" I thought to myself. Then I found more girl clothes and yelled to Mel to come back in, I thought we were done going through girl stuff but I just found more! I threw those on the floor by the door - too many clothes! I continued to grab boy items and throw them on the bed in their proper pile - 5T, 6, 7, 8, 8-10... when lo and behold, I saw a plastic bag around a black blender lid.


"MY BLENDER!!!!" I screamed to the house! Then I pause for a moment of silence as I wait for Joe to come back with my camera, for this is a grand moment as I think and say to myself "WHAT THE HECK IS MY BLENDER DOING IN THIS BIN?!?!?!? THIS BIN IS NOT EVEN LABELED!!" And I look around it on all sides, nothing.


So I found the base of the blender, dig a little more, yay!


There's the pitcher too, and I keep saying to myself "What was I thinking? Why in the world is my blender in this bin of clothes?!" Very poor job on the packing there. Maybe I was just running fumes? I guess I thought I would remember? Maybe I would have if we had returned in December like the Tiffanie of September 2010 thought we would be doing, rather than May. I feel like such an idiot! Ethan dug around some with me and found more missing items at the very bottom of the bin, all the measuring cups and spatulas:


I have no idea what I was thinking throwing them in an unmarked bin of clothes. I found some of my clothes in there too - so everyone had some clothing in there, so trying to piece this together my best guess right now is that these were the clothes we were all wearing as I packed our Costa Rica clothes in luggage, so when it was time to go, I did a last load of laundry and threw them all in here? So dumb. Next time, label the bins Tiffanie, EVERY bin! Why would I not label this one? Cause I had packed up the permanent marker and tape? Maybe, I can't remember anything about last fall. I'm very grateful that I didn't loose it, and pretty exciting that I still have mystery and drama in my life back here in the states. :)

So ~Yay! Chocolate protein shake for breakfast tomorrow, I might even add the spinach. Now I'm off to go freeze some bananas! Woo-hoo!

Missing Blender and Motherhood

My blender is lost. I still have hopes we will find it, but don't have any idea where it could be. I do know that there is a box of kitchen stuff out there somewhere that was stolen from storage or misplaced by myself or accidentally donated or did I loan it out to someone and don't remember? The blender is missing, which is the big one I'm sad about, and the rest of the stuff I've discovered is missing is replaceable - a toaster, a set of white Sterlite bowls (realized that was missing when I made a salad on Sunday), my measuring cups, big metal mixing spoons and spatulas. The storage unit where all our stuff we kept was looked through a second and third time, not there. I'm going to check at my neighbor's where she's still storing all my scrapbooks, but I don't think I put it there. Sigh.

What else is going on here? Not much. Monday my goal was to have the side room all cleared out and all boxes unpacked. Did that. Now my goal is to sort through and donate lots of the girl clothes that are in piles upstairs. Didn't do that yet. I did make dinner again tonight, and planned it out several hours before hand, thank you! Yay! I recently listened to this episode of Mormon Channel. I just love Julie Beck. In my blog surfing I also came across these two talks by Sister Beck - One from BYU's Women's Conference last year, and the other from a Seminary and Institute broadcast in 2009. It's kinda hit me lately, or maybe while we were still in Chile and were soon to come home, I thought about what I want my family life and schedule and home to be like. Then after we got home I was visiting with my parent's and read this article, "What's Your Calling In Life", at their house, along with a copy of a newspaper article that was on their fridge about loving your home and housework (Not this article, but close - basically along these lines, and I'm going to order this book!) Reminded me of this that Stephanie Nielsen said. When I read that from Nienie I just sighed cause that's exactly how I feel, on the days that I let myself focus on the house and kids and don't let myself get so busy with the non-essentials.

So all those things have been stewing around in my head lately, and I'm thinking that I have finally discovered my mission: My mission is motherhood! Obviously, I've already been doing it for a while, but always been thinking it was a temporary thing I had to do right now, mostly mundane work to be endured with joyful moments sprinkled here and there, but now, it's like a lightbulb has gone on, or is being screwed in and tinkered with, and it's making my mind and life clear and happy - you know what? I like being a mother and I like to clean my house! Sure it's sometimes a big mess, but that's usually cause I've pushed it aside as a non-essential, but it's not! These are is the things that really makes me in such a good mood - The days that I get up, exercise, and clean the house are wonderful days that I feel really great and in a good and patient mood. I want to be a homemaker! I don't know, it's kinda been a revelation to me for some reason. And it might be kinda hard to be a homemaker when you're renting or traveling and spending months at a time on international soil, but I was so much less distracted there that I think I did a pretty good job there. Like I said, when I was in Chile and thinking about coming back and what our life and schedule would be like, I was worried about being sucked in to the busy-ness of it all. A friend from the US in Costa Rica said it all better than I could on her blog - so there's another link - 8 links! Thus are my jumbled thoughts these past few weeks, hoping to get them processed in my head and working in my life soon!

And hope I find my blender!!!

Random Junk!

Still unpacking, and I haven't found my blender yet and I'm getting irritated about it. We're down to the last few boxes and they aren't labled "Blender" and I'm pretty sure, since it's my favorite little counter top machine in the world, that I would have written "BLENDER!!!" or "I LOVE MY K-TEC!!!" in bold with pretty hearts around it cause I love it and don't want to live without it. Anyone know where it is? Did I lend it out to someone to share the joy? Think! Think, Tiffanie!

I've made a list of other MIA items, hopefully things will come together soon. I do enjoy unpacking more than packing. I laugh that I keep finding mystery boxes labled like this:


Makes me think I got to de-junk more. I've already donated 3 garbage bags and a box of things to the DI. Hope to get more and only have things in the house that give me joy when I look at them and don't drain my energy. No more junk!

Best Apple Around

I just wanted to share my 2 cents here and give you a delicious apple to look for next time at the store in case you haven't tried them before: Pink Lady apples (aka Cripps Pink) are the most delicious apples around, and the prettiest! They are always such a bright and shiny pink and yellow, they taste crisp and tart, which I love - love sour fruits. Go and buy some today! Last night I went shopping for the first time since we've been back and I saw these and yay! Pink Lady Apples! To quote my children as we've been unpacking "I remember these!!!" I didn't see all the exotic tropical fruits at the store, but have enjoyed finding the old familiar stand-by's again ~ Nice to be home. :)

Family Dinner with Macadamia Fun

Yesterday we had our very first sit down dinner at our folding banquet table - we sold our dining table on craigslist when we moved to Costa Rica last year. But hooray for me for making dinner! Woo-hoo! But I have a long way to go. I want to be a good cook and to have lovely looking dinners for my family and a nicely decorated table, but it's never seemed to all come together, even when we weren't moving or packing up. It didn't tonight - we did it, but it wasn't domestically pretty and or an exotic cuisine, but someday. Once I finish all the other stuff on my too long to-do list, right? As for now, the kids are happy with mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets, so we'll start with that and work our way up.


I also received a package yesterday from Cutter - we found each other's blogs through BodyRockTV. After she saw our sad excuse for lunch sacks in Chile, she sweetly offered to share her sewing and creative talents with us and send us some lunch bags she makes - Cutter, thank you so much, you are the cutest!

Ketchup faced Abi holding her pink and yellow lunch sack - she held it up but put it down as the camera flashed...

The kids love the lunch sacks, although Melodie's been walking around with it as her purse today and Ethan took his with him camping tonight - it's been raining the past 9 days but did clear up this afternoon, I hope they don't get rained on!

Anyway, in each sack was a can of Hawaiian macadamia nuts or Hawaiian tropical jam or some other island treat. I am grateful that she didn't send more than one can of the chocolate and toffee covered macademias, cause I am ashamed to say I ate the whole thing of 4 servings at over 200 calories each (oh, the lack of self control I have, but they were so tasty!) in less than an hour and would have probably eaten another can by myself had there had been another. Yes, my tongue loves chocolates and thus why I've gained 20 lbs the past year. Well, I guess the pregnancy and crazy hormones might also be to blame a little for that. :)

So, and here I'm finally getting to my story to share - there was a can of Hot Mustard Wasabi Macadamia. I ate two for some variety as I work my way down to the bottom on the chocolate covered nuts can, then I thought it would be fun to save them and share with the kids and see their reaction... then came dinner time. As they dined on mashed potatoes, mixed veggies, and Mickey Mouse chicken nuggets (from Costco! such a big bag!!) I put out a little bowl of the nuts on the table and shared with them where they came from and the sweet package we received from a friendly stranger, with the invitation "Who's brave enough to try one?" Dad went first, and while he did chew it, he didn't swallow. Corey's 2 cents "Those nuts have no redeeming qualities."


Of course the kids interest was piqued after seeing their father squirm. Who's brave? Ethan and Melodie licked a nut and freaked out laughing and screaming, which made Wesley and Abi laugh at this game. Wesley volunteered "I'll try one!" and he didn't lick, he bit it and in an instant was freaking out. We helped him to the sink to spit it out and gave him some milk.

Look at those sad little eyes, "I don't want to eat those again, Mom."

Abi wanted to try one and took a bite and then she freaked out, all the older siblings were laughing, Corey was laughing, and I was trying to mend the damage done to my innocent toddlers from this experiment I started. I still wanted the older kids to try one. The kids would trick each other and us by eating a honey glazed nut pretending it was a wasabi, then fake freaking out. Melodie finally did really try one, and I got a good picture of her going for a glass of water for some relief.


Pretty funny stuff, we had a fun family dinner laughing and trying something new, thanks again Cutter! The fine dining will come someday, but as for now, we're pretty good and fun and crazy.

Hello Chloe!

The kids had talked about this day for many months - and the day finally arrived on May 8th. After church was over, we went over to see our puppy named Chloe, who is now a big dog named Nikita.

She loves attention and is always excited to have visitors - we gave her lots of love and she made us feel loved and missed too.


That's Chloe getting a hug from Abi, and Joe is petting Ruby, Chloe's Best Friend Forever

Chloe didn't lick Abi as much as Abi thought was appropriate for such a joyous reunion as this, and went over to the car to sulk. I thought she looked so cute crying with her little hands around her knees, it's okay Abi! Chloe loves you, we promise. I think Abi was also sad that she couldn't pick Chloe up and cradle her like a baby. I think a very small dog or a rabbit might be good for this little blossoming mother.

Abi continued her sulking at the car and wouldn't come over for the official reunion photo, so she's not in this shot:


But we took one more picture after she was over her pout.

You're a good dog, Chloe, we love you and are excited to be neighbors with you! We are sorry we had to leave you, but are glad you have the Nelson's and Grandma Ruby, she was there for you during the whole transition when we left... you two girls need each other. Once it stops raining here we'll try to come over more and take you on walks and such, okay? :)

Bye Chloe!!